Who knew? Husqvarna’s Swedish sanctuary

Matt Bubbers writes for CMG about motorcycles as somebody who’s just getting into them, but his regular job — if you can call it that — is as a reviewer of cars for The Globe and Mail and for Sharp Magazine. This means he gets to travel the world, driving exotic machinery in out of the way places.

Recently, he was in Sweden, driving a new Volvo from Stockholm to Copenhagen, and found himself with some time on his hands. And this is what happened. – Ed.

So there I was, driving across Sweden in the middle of winter, when I noticed signs for a town called Huskvarna. What a coincidence, I thought, just like the motorcycle company!

It was on a particularly beautiful stretch of the E4 highway, between Stockholm and Gothenburg, next to Lake Vattern. The sun was setting. I went back to check out the town the next day, and — ohmygod the Husqvarna Museum! My road trip ground to a screeching halt that morning.

The thing you must know about visiting the Husqvarna museum is that it’s massive, 2,400 square metres. You’d better allocate an entire day if you visit. If you’re ever in Sweden, it’s about a three-hour drive/ride (or four-hour train ride) from Stockholm and well worth the detour.

The Museum is massive not only because the company is very old — dating back to the 1680s — but because Husqvarna has made everything: from appliances to guns to power tools to sewing machines to the coolest dirt bikes on earth. Fancy pants Steve McQueen liked them. (In case you’re the one person on Earth who hasn’t seen On Any Sunday.)

The Husqvarna Museum is run by the Huskvarna Local History Society. Day-to-day operations are done largely by volunteers, who, it must be said, have done amazing work here. Thank you!

There are far more motorcycles than there are placards describing them, so you’ll have to excuse the fact I can’t identify all of the bikes on display — let alone rifles, type writers and robotic lawnmowers.

If you can fill in some of the missing info, I’d be curious to hear about it in the comments section below. For example, what is this beautiful machine?

The Canadian Motorcycle Guide

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